Legrand’s first-ever home EV charger

Legrand’s Plug-In Home Level 2 EV Charger is pretty simple. It doesn’t require an electrician to hard-wire it into a house’s electrical system; it only needs to be plugged into a 50-amp power outlet – the kind that’s used for such appliances as dryers, stoves, or heavy-duty power tools. Legrand’s home EV charger also isn’t networked.

The unit is rated for 40 A and provides an output of 9.6kW, so it can deliver an extended range of up to 38 miles per hour of charging.

This compact charger comes with an SAE J1772 Connector and will also charge Teslas with an adapter. It’s robust enough to be used both indoors and outdoors and is Energy Star certified for efficiency.

Kevin Kohl, Legrand’s director of product management and user experiences, said:

For many people, their garages and driveways don’t have a lot of room to spare. The unit itself is sleek and compact so that it can provide convenient charging access without adding bulk to the space. Its cord is 18’ long, so that it can easily reach multiple spots and get where it needs to, but it then easily rolls up and stores on the unit’s included hook and holster. Perfect for keeping it tidy and out of the way when not in use.

Electrek’s Take

My colleague, Jameson Dow, rightly wondered what was unique about this EV charger because there are a lot of home EV chargers coming to market.

Legrand is a legacy brand, and this is its first-ever home EV charger. So there will be a guaranteed level of quality with this product, for a start.

Also, not everyone wants or needs to be hard-wired and networked into Wi-Fi. Sometimes people just want a pared-down option to charge their EVs at home. If you rent your home, for example, this would be a great home EV charger option, assuming there was a 50-amp power outlet already onsite.

This option wouldn’t work for me – my ChargePoint EV charger is hard-wired and hooked up to Wi-Fi so that I can get a reduced rate from my utility, Green Mountain Power. That being the case, I’d rather get a discount on my electricity bill, and GMP gave me my EV charger for free.

But I paid nearly $1,000 to have it installed, so it’s a good thing my charger was free. Legrand’s home charger, on the other hand, costs $739. So that’s cheaper upfront than what I paid, just as a point of comparison.

So I think that what’s so great about Legrand’s new product is that it’s another indicator that choices of home EV chargers are increasing – the more, the merrier, as long as they’re of good quality.